All in a Night's Work
by WolfButler
Summary: CO-AUTHORED BY STEINBOCK. Everyone has a past-some people's are just more hidden than others.There may be valid reasons for it,but regardless this fic-set will aim to reveal just some select snippets of the people,places and experiences that shaped the world's best bodyguard into what he is today. Latest Chapter: It was a cold, dark stormy night. No seriously, it was...
1. Compulsory Prologue Explanation Thing

**A READER'S GUIDE TO:**

**All in a Night's Work**

**By**

**WolfButler and Steinbock**

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**INTRODUCTION**

**It has come to our attention that the Butlers never get enough... well, attention, actually. You probably all know that I do my best to fix that with the various hero-worship-style fics I tend to write about them, but this fic-set is going to be a whole lot different for several reasons which I will list below in the hope that I don't miss anything important :)**

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**INFORMATION**

**1. It's not, as a lot of my writing is, based on a quote from the Artemis Fowl Series per-se, that I have expanded on to epic proportions. Butler's Academy days and life before guarding Fowls are never really spoken about. Juliet's experience of Madam Ko's Bodyguarding Academy get mentioned more than her brother's, and this fic-set sets out to hopefully try and fix that.****  
**

**2. It could encompass anything from Butler's birth to Artemis's birth. That's sort of a warning but mainly just to let you know, all the pieces will fit together but it is highly unlikely they will be in any order whatsoever. They may be 'Parts' of a mini-series within the set, such as the first one, which will be entitled 'The Origins of Cookie'.**

**3. Biggest and most important reason - I'm not flying solo on this one... :) My fellow co-author, Steinbock, will be helping by providing (downright hilarious if you ask me) scenarios and the wonderful, amazing, brilliant OCs you have yet to meet.**

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**WARNINGS**

**1. It'll be a side of Butler that doesn't get seen in the Artemis Fowl Series, but quite often is displayed in my own fics. He's young and free (ish) so he won't be 'Butler-bodyguard-of-Fowl' as we know him. In consequence, there may be what some people take to be OOCness. Please bear that in mind if you think he's not acting himself. This is about the experiences that made him who he is today. We're all different as kids/young adults.**

**2. It probably won't have much of any other recognisable character other than Butler. I may be wrong. There may be quite a bit of Juliet and probably at least a little bit of The Major. Madam Ko will appear, probably regularly. Maybe Christian Varley Penrose or any other character Colfer has offered us throughout the series, such as Justin Barre and Sid Commons. The Fowls could appear from time to time but no promises and there is unlikely to be any big fairy appearances, which I know some people have a problem with but this isn't the only fic-set on the site and there are plenty of fairy-related ones to go read if you feel that way.  
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**3. Well, how to put this. None of it is going to be 'M-rated' as I'm fairly confident that every teenager in the world has seen/heard/experienced most of what could occur throughout the fic-set. There will be Swearing. Possibly in several different languages. Explanation? For the majority of the stories, the majority of the characters will probably be teenaged bodyguards-in-training. I think that says enough. There will be innuendos and whatnot. Explanation? For the majority of the stories, the majority of the characters will probably be teenaged bodyguard-in-training. There will be violence, things your are not to try at home and other miscellaneous silliness and skulduggery. Explanation? For the majority of the stories... need I go through that again? Really?**

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**A FINAL NOTE**

**Well, if you've found your way here from the *shameless-self-advertising* in Little Remedies, my other fic-set, it appears that some of you decided you'd like to know why on earth anyone would ever call one Domovoi Butler by such a ridiculous nickname as 'Cookie'. If not and you've just stumbled across this, it wouldn't matter if you only ever read what's in here. The short-stories stand alone if you'd rather not nip back and read Part One of the first mini-series 'The Origins of Cookie'.**

**Personally, I hope you get to know and love Steinbock's OCs as much as I have.**

**Any opinions you have on our work will be very much appreciated!**

**Now go on, get reading!**

**And Enjoy!**

**Wolfy and Steinbock  
ooo  
O**

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**P.S**

***smash***

**That was the metaphorical bottle of orange-juice hitting the metaphorical side of the great metaphorical ship 'The Cookie'.**

**We hope you enjoy your trip with us and also... if Cookie ever reads this... that he remembers that we only did this because we love him...**

**Lots ;)**


	2. The Origins of Cookie Part 2

**Hi there :)**

**In the vague possibility you jumped to here and by-passed the prologue chapter:**

**If you're here, I guess you've either spotted this was coming from Lil' Rem's (AKA - Little Remedies, WolfButler *shamless-self-advertising-alert*) or you've just bumped into it. If it's the latter, you could go read the 'Part 1' bit, but to be honest, all three parts can stand alone as stories.**

**But without further ado, here is Part 2!**

**WARNINGS: Swearing, Violence, other general stuff to be expected from student of Madam Ko's Academy.**

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**The Origins of Cookie**

**_Part 2_**

_"Who's going for a Captain Cook, then?" - Daniel __**'John'**__ Chase_

The fear really set in when it went silent.

But of course they were students of Madam Ko's Bodyguarding Academy and so it wasn't _'fear'_ so much as it was _'severe apprehension'_, which it has to be said, nigh on _anyone_ would feel under the situation.

Nevertheless, it was completely silent.

The kind of silence when the absence of sound is like a roaring to the ears and every flake of landing dust sounds like static in a storm.

How bad a situation was could often be gauged on the way Dom would smooth his left hand over the barrel of his gun, the way John's hand would wander towards his neck to touch the chain his crucifix hung on, the way Chicago would keep patting his bag to check his medi-kit was reachable within point seven of a second, the way Panther would grind his teeth silently, his jaw working back and forth furiously. But perhaps the most obvious key of how deep they had waded themselves in this time, was the distinct lack of running commentary from Banana.

This current situation had degraded from training to real-life very quickly. Knowing Ko, it could all be an act and they were still fairly safe, the explosions releasing only knock-out gas, the bullets made only of rubber, the enemy only friendlies in disguise. Or, they could _assume_ that and end up dead by fiery explosion, very real bullets or very _un_friendly enemies.

They were in a building. Which was insecure at best, downright dangerous at worst. Not only in the fact that it had no glass in most of the windows, the door was distinctly un-lockable and they were on the ground floor, but also the fact that they had been holed up here for eight minutes now with enemies prowling the street outside looking for trespassers – i.e. _them._

Their only viable exit lead them out to the side of the house and out into an alleyway, from where they should be able to escape into the maze of the near-deserted town. At one end of the alley there was a chainlink fence that would hinder their plan, at the other, a clear run to the street. But it was a street that could be lined with enemies waiting to dispatch them easily. There had been no attempts to flush them out as of yet, but that was more threatening than a good thing. They would have to move. Which meant someone taking a look outside – and hopefully returning with their head still attached to their shoulders and at least the majority of their limbs.

"Right," John said very softly. "Who's going for a Captain Cook then?"

A few pairs of eyes blinked at him in the semi-darkness, confused. Others translated the Aussie-slang and tried to make themselves distinctly less obvious - trying to lessen the chances of getting picked to stick their head above the windowsill and take a look into the deserted street outside. Or at least they hoped it would be empty. If it wasn't, it would be ultimately worse.

Only one of the group shrugged his shoulders slightly and rose to his hunkers.

"I'll do it," offered Domovoi.

John rolled his eyes. He had about to suggest they draw straws, but trust the Butler to volunteer.

"Christ, Dom, you get a bullet between your ears and you know I'm going to kill you, right?" Chicago muttered, ever the 'mother-hen' of the group.

Domovoi made _'yap-yap-yap'_-ing motions with one hand and rolled his eyes.

"Do you have an actual death wish? Anything you want to tell us about? Feeling suicidal at all?" Banana asked sarcastically.

"Nope," Dom said, smiling slightly as knuckled forward cautiously, making his way to the front of the pack. He'd have to get across a hallway and into the room opposite, then crawl up to the broken window and raise his head above the parapet, so to speak. "But we all know I'm the least likely to get hit."

"You saying you're better than us, Butler?" Panther growled.

"Well I didn't actually _say_ it," he smirked.

"We should just rename you 'Captain Cook' after all the times you're the one to go reccy things," John shook his head.

"Captain Cook, eh?" Dom shrugged, lowering himself to his belly and sliding across the hallway and towards the window. "Could be worse."

"Sounds pretty shite to me," Panther muttered. "Like he should be going round with his pants on the outside of his trousers."

"Better than Banana-man, though," Chicago chipped in with a chuckle.

"You guys are never going to let that go, are you," the one they called Banana, muttered.

"Nope."

"Quiet," John hissed, hushing them as Dom reached the window.

He didn't look back at them. Focus clear on his face as he inched his way upwards until his eyes were level with the sill, flashed his sharp gaze across the street with particular attention to shadows and then ducked quickly out of the way. His heart picked up the pace slightly as he relayed the images he'd managed to mentally photograph in the second or so his eyes had swept the street beyond the walls. He'd seen something. Or rather some_one_. And he didn't recognise the figure as one of the other team either. The five others would hopefully be almost back to camp now. Normally that would be an irritation. They would lose. Be given some tedious task as punishment. But all sense of competition between the two groups of teenagers had vanished less than half an hour ago when someone had opened fire on them.

_We clear?_ John signed in the gloom, unwilling to call out too loudly, lest they be heard and caught.

_One hostile, _Dom held up a finger.

_Did he see you?_

Dom shrugged, about to attempt to sign; _'Well my head's still attached to my neck, isn't it?'_ when something sailed through the window over the top him, bounced once, then rolled in the slow arc, typical of a semi-cylindrical object, coming to rest half-way around the circle it drew in the dusty ground. There was a split second of shock and then Dom leapt forward from his horizontal position, wrapped one hand around the grenade and rolled onto his back, using the momentum to sling the explosive back from whence it came. Almost before the grenade cleared the window it exploded. Outside someone screamed in pain and surprise. Dust billowed through the new hole in the wall coating them instantly and creating a thick smokescreen which no-one could see through.

"Move, move, move!" John bellowed and the team leapt to their feet, running for the predetermined exit.

If there was a time to move, it was now. Regardless of how many opponents there was on the street, they would have to take their chances. Their position had been compromised and they were under active attack. The best time to make a run was directly after a shot had been fired, so to speak.

In the dust and confusion, no-one knew where anyone else was, and as they leapt through the broken window, John did a frantic head count.

"Shit where's Dom? Did he make it?"

"I didn't see him get up," Banana said, his face pale.

Then again, they were all pale. The dust had seen to that and would also make it ultimately harder to hide in the darkness that was falling rapidly. Assuming they survived, that was.

"Dunno – just keep moving," Panther coughed. "He wouldn't want us sticking around."

"I'll go back," Chicago said, faltering. "I'll see if I can help…"

"No you bloody-well won't," Panther growled, slinging him forward by the collar. "Move it!"

Even John had to admit, training took over in situations like this. Move on. Go back later.

"But John…" Chicago implored.

"No, Chic. Let's go. I'll go back when you three are safe."

The look the younger lad gave him showed clearly that he didn't believe what his group leader said, but going back could be suicide. And so could heading towards the street.

"Make for the fence," John ordered, bringing up the rear and shoving Chicago in front of him.

The four of them sprinted for the end of the alley, reaching the barrier at the end just as the gunfire started up again. As though they had practiced the moment for weeks, John and Panther braced their backs against the chainlink and held out their hands, hoisting the other two up and over the fence. Dark shadows appeared at the far end of the alley, disguised by the dust but clearly armed with live-ammo handguns, that much was clear from the way the metal bullets ricocheted off the walls.

"Gah shite, we're done for," Panther growled, pulling his own rubber-bullet gun, hoping to at least scare their enemies into backing off enough for them to make the leap over the fence.

"Get over," John jerked his head at the top of the fence, setting his hands.

"No, I'll cover. You go."

"Don't you fucking argue with me, Sean," John snarled at him. "Get over the Goddamn fence."

Panther blinked, stunned for a second. But the fact that the normally mild-mannered Australian had sworn at him, let alone called him his first name and then actually _blasphemed_, was enough to make even the hefty, stubborn Irishman plant his foot into the offered hand-stirrup and push upwards, clearing the fence easily. The second he was over, John turned and hauled himself up on the chain, making for the top, his boots scrabbling on the rusted metal.

"Hey you – stop!" one of the men with the guns bellowed, firing a warning shot. Pretty close warning shot, if you asked John. The bullet passed right through the flapping side of his jacket and he made one more pull to the top of the fence, catching his sleeve on the rusty barbed wire. The three armed men advanced quickly as John hauled at the material, trying to rip it free. His team held back, but chainlink wasn't bulletproof in the slightest and they were by no means safe on the other side of it.

"Get going!" John yelled at them, but he might as well have been yelling in Latin for all they listened to him.

Panther, Chicago and Banana returned fire, but with their bullets considerably less deadly, the enemies in the alleyway dodged forward for a clearer shot in the dust-filled, darkened alley.

Realising he couldn't free himself without dropping back down the same side he'd come from, John gave up climbing over and finally tore free, landing heavily and rolling to face his enemies.

Only they weren't facing him anymore.

For a series of reasons, actually.

The first being that a well-aimed brick had sailed through the window and landed squarely on the base of the skull of one of the shooters, dropping him instantly. The other two spun round to face the attack, only to be pelted by rubber bullets. The term 'rubber' suggests that the ammunition simply bounces off the target harmlessly. This is not true. They really, _really _hurt. In some cases they have even proved to be fatal. Faced with these facts, the men retreated somewhat, giving John's rescuer time to leap from the window and join him in the alley.

Dom took full advantage of the hesitation, taking things to hand-to-hand combat when one of the men attempted to hit him with the butt of his gun. John immediately saw what he was doing and leapt to his feet dodging 'friendly-fire' from behind and taking his place by his friend's side.

"Back-to-back?" he offered and Dom nodded, a practiced routine emerging as they spun together, easily predicting the other's next move, which was more than could be said for their opponents who seemed to work as separate individuals rather than with the trained unity of the Ko students.

Every block and punch was tactical, ensuring that neither of the pair was ever left open to attack for more than a second at a time. John swept a leg forward with a kick, Dom grabbing his shoulder to balance him and then swing forward with his own attack, the whole time they inched towards the relative safety of the fence, relying on the accuracy of their teammates' firing. Which was good, but in the melee of fighting, more than a few stray bullets found their way onto the bodies of John and Dom. But there'd be plenty of time to complain and punish them for that later. Assuming they survived, that was.

Despite the obvious age difference between the two pairs, the younger were clearly winning. One man succumbed to a throat jab followed by a pressure-point squeeze continued into a pull that had his face impacting with the taller of the two teenagers' knee. The last man fell back, retreating to the end of the alley, fumbling with a gun, but being driven to take cover by another volley of rubber-bullets.

"Make for the fence," John ordered for the second time that evening and he and Dom turned, each hauling themselves over the wire - this time much more successfully on John's behalf. As they dropped into the alley beyond, Banana, Panther and Chicago leapt from behind their shields of junk and the five sprinted to the end far end of the alley, out of sight and on their way back way to the academy before the men could muster back-up and come after them again.

Vanishing into the shadows was a talent of theirs.

When they finally returned to the Academy, Madam Ko was not overly impressed with their antics.

_"If an exercise is named one of __**'stealth'**__ training, I would have thought it would be obvious even to your thick... **minds**... that... __should... **endeavour**... to... **not**... be... **spotted!**"_ she had reprimanded them, clouting each in turn with her infamous bamboo cane to emphasise her point.

Nobody felt much like pointing out that an exercised named _'training'_ usually inferred that they weren't meant to be in danger of being killed at any point…

This was, after all, Madam Ko's Bodyguarding Academy.

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**Some of you are possibly wondering why this trio of ficlets is called 'The Origins of Cookie', but all will become clear in the next part :)**

**Well, if you have the time, we'd be very interested to hear what you have to say about this joint effort, particularly what you think of Butler's academy-mates so far. That's not even all of them. We've not even begun properly yet, people! Their names will probably appear throughout so rather than writing a cast list, we'll let you get to know them slowly and surely. You're gonna love these guys, honest!**

**Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoyed it!**

**Wolfy and Steinbock**  
**ooo**  
**O**


	3. The Origins of Cookie Part 3

**Thanks to: _Crazy Female LEPrecon, Shadow Huntress, 2whitie, Fowl Star 57_ for the support so far. This is for you guys!**

**And so it gets told. The story of exactly why 'Cookie' of all nicknames...**

**WARNINGS: Some (perfectly justifiable, really) Swearing.**

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**THE ACADEMY DAYS**

**The Origins of Cookie**

**_Part 3_**

_'We sound like ice-cream flavours' – Charles __**'Banana'**__ Smith_

Shortly after 'The Night Ko Bollocked Us For Our Stealth Skillage', it occurred to John, Banana and the others, that it really _was _Dom who was always, _always_ first through the door. Or first to offer to check something out. Or first to volunteer for an unsavoury job. Or first to poke the mysterious object with a stick.

Which, actually, was exactly what this prank relied on…

The scene was set, the dialogue formulated, the escape routes for the various perpetrators of the crime, well prepared. After all, it was all well and good pulling off the best trick of the term, but it wouldn't be so impressive, or fun, if you weren't alive to see the results.

Now all they needed was a curious Butler.

Of which they had one to hand, of course...

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Domovoi Butler wandered across the camp, towelling water from his ears. After a hard day of training, he was genuinely ready for a good kip. The others had got to the shower before him, unfortunately, which meant that by the time he filled up and got under one of the buckets, the water that had been warmed by the day's sun had been completely used up and he was forced to have a cold shower. But that was alright. There were worse things in life than cold showers.

It was quiet around the tents, which was unusual in itself. Normally there'd be the buzz and hum of chatter, particularly around the fourth-year's section of the camp. His suspicious nature twitched slightly, but he shrugged it off, heading for the tent he currently shared with his fellow fourth-years, Rolando, Charlie and Brian. Before he even got there, he knew something was off. For one, his friends were not in their tents, flat out on their grassmats trying to get some sleep in case of an unexpected night exercise, but were instead, stood outside peering through the door-flaps and looking rather... well, rather_ nervous_ actually.

"Well I'm not bloody-well touching it," Banana yelped loudly, backing away from the tent as though someone had already ordered him to investigate whatever was causing the problem.

"You're _pazzoide_ if you think I'm going to," Rolando agreed, punctuating his unwillingness with an adjective of his native tongue - Italian.

"You what?" Jake, another fourth-year, not so fluent in foreign languages asked, wandering over and peering into the tent past him.

The group stared into the tent for a few seconds, others gathering until there was a veritable crowd gathered around the front of it.

"What's going on?" asked Briareus, or rather 'Brian' as most of his friend's had decided he should be called to simplify things, wandering over for a look himself. "'Cause ya know, I'd kinda like to get some shut-eye fairly soon and unless you want to be gawking at me lying there, you'd better get going."

Those who knew of Greek's preferred sleeping attire, or rather _lack of_, pulled various faces of disgust and dispersed until only a few hardened team members remained.

"What_ is_ it?" the one they called 'Chicago' rather than Wilhelm Chigrakov due to the difficult pronunciation of his real names, wondered aloud.

"Not our tent, not our problem," Sean 'Panther' O'Tool, Domovoi's fellow Irishman, snorted derisively.

His interest well and truly piqued now, Dom elbowed his way into the group to see what was causing the commotion.

In the middle of the tent, a round, unidentified object about the size of a football lay, undisturbed. The young Butler froze.

_Is it explosive?_ - was his first thought. _How did it get there?_ – was his second. _Is it a test or a trick of some kind?_ – his third.

"Hey John," he called over to the eldest of the group, eyes still fixed on the mysterious object. "You know anything about this?"

John, whose name wasn't actually any variation of his nickname, such as Jonathon, as one would imagine, looked up from the book he was reading where he sat outside the neighbouring tent.

"What's that, mate?" he asked, in his Australian accent.

He was not older by much, but had all of the qualities of a natural born leader and it was to him that most people turned when they had a query, be that what _'fatuus'_ meant in Latin, what was on the dinner menu that evening or in this case, what the _hell _was sat in their tent like a sinister egg laid by some unidentified giant monstrous bird.

"This… who-jimmy-whatsit in our tent," Banana asked, taking a step back. "You see Ko send it in?"

"Nope. But I wouldn't touch it, if I were you. Maybe go tell someone…"

"Nah, don't be soft. I'll see what it is," Dom said, laughing at his friend's overly-cautious nature.

"Don't, you big galah – that could be explosive," John frowned, dropping his book to the floor and walking over.

"I'll poke it then," Dom shrugged. "Get me something, would you Banana?"

Banana looked around blankly, then reached for the smouldering campfire and grabbed a fair-length stick. "This do?"

"Cheers," Dom said, taking it off him and deciding how to go about his investigating.

"I want witnesses," John muttered. "I tell him some doovalacky could be explosive, so he decides to poke it with a flaming stick."

"It's hardly 'flaming', John…"

"Huh. That's not what I meant and you know it. This 'Captain Cook' attitude is gonna get you in trouble one day, I tell you…"

"Yeah, yeah I heard ya," Dom waved his hand dismissively and scuffed the lit end of the stick in the dirt for a moment to dislodge some of the embers. "Happy now? Jeesh…"

The others stepped back, widening the semi-circle. Jake and Brian even went so far as to turn sideways, ready to run for cover.

This in itself should probably have nudged on the Butler's suspicion-sensor, but he was currently preoccupied with the stick and mysterious object, so in the back of his mind, he passed it off as them being wusses.

Later, he would realise exactly _why _they acted as they did.

Reaching forward with the stick and knowing that, if the 'thing' really _was_ explosive, this could be the stupidest thing he had ever done, Domovoi poked it and...

Nothing happened.

Which was a bit of an anti-climax, really.

"Poke it again," Banana whispered, as though the volume of his speech might cause the 'thing' to rear up and attack them.

So Dom did, shuffling a step forward like a fencer and jabbing the mysterious round object forcibly with the hot stick.

It dutifully exploded.

But not in the way he'd been apprehensive of.

No. This was worse. Much, _much_ worse.

At least if it had spontaneously combusted, his nasal passages would have been far too singed to smell what actually _did_ come out of the ball when it burst.

He leapt backwards, only to find himself being shoved forwards, back into the tent, by several strong pairs of hands and arms. He landed heavily, right next to the 'thing' which was happily emitting a horrendous assault to his nostrils, permeating ever cubic centimetre of air he breathed in and sinking into anything it touched.

His so-called 'friends' fumbled with the toggles that would keep the door shut and trap him - and the smell - inside for a good few seconds more than was entirely necessary.

Dom lunged at the last foot-or-so of open space and latched onto someone's ankle. The other's scattered, abandoning their fellow like deer being pursued by a rather angry wolf. Banana screamed, as most people do when being dragged by the ankles, but since Dom had little intention of spending any more time than was _absolutely_ necessary in the tent which was now full of an invisible, choking gaseous concoction, he used the other boy to haul himself _out_ of the tent rather than Banana into it.

"What the fuck?! What the _fuck_…" Dom retched, his eyes streaming from the stench. _"What the fuck was that?!"_

But by this stage, Banana was laughing far too hysterically for anything he said to be even remotely comprehensible.

The others stood out of range, both of the smell and the Butler, in various matching states of hilarity.

"Technicolour yawn alert!" the Aussie warned, stepping well away as Dom retched loudly again clawing at his face and repeating himself again and again in-between gulping breaths.

"Looky, looky I got Cookie," Banana spluttered, once he had stopped laughing enough for his lungs to contain enough air to be expended on speech.

The Butler froze in what he was doing, which was hawking spit into the undergrowth, and stared at his 'friend'.

As did the majority of the rest of the group once they noticed the venom with which he was glaring.

"You got _what?_"

Banana carried on regardless.

"Not _what_," he sang in the sing-song voice he generally used to greatly irritate people on a regular basis. "_Who_ - and by _who_ I mean _you, _Captain Cookie!"

"You are _not _calling me that," Dom growled, but it is difficult to appear menacing when you smell like the back end of a skunk and your face is practically swelling up with the strength of the hideousness of the sour-smelling stink you, your clothes and your tent will probably reek of for the next fortnight.

"Aww come _on_, Cookie," Banana wheedled.

"Shut it, dickhead!"

"But it suits you…"

"I warning you, Banana!"

Banana paused. But not for long. He never paused for long. Even when he was asleep, he barely stayed silent for more than an hour without some unconscious murmuring.

"We sound like ice-cream flavours…" he stage-whispered to the rest of them.

"Charlie, I will beat seven bells of shit out of you if you carry on with that, I swear to God…" Dom growled, lunging for him and adding a belated, "…sorry John."

John, who was a Christian and religious to a degree not often seen at the Academy, shrugged, more peeved about the fact the Butler boy had accused him of being overly paranoid than because Dom had used his God's name in vain.

"No problem…" he said, a smug _'I-told-you-so'_ grin appearing on his face. "…Cookie."

His friend glared at him with a look of utmost betrayal before leaping to his feet, scowling furiously.

"Fine. I hope you enjoyed your entertainment for the evening."

The group of friends parted instantly, scrabbling and almost tripping over eachother in their haste.

"Aww come on Cookster, it was only a joke..." Brian grinned.

The Butler actually physically _growled_ and the smirk vanished as he stormed past, terrifying a couple of second-years that dared to stare at him.

"Ooo-eck..." Chicago muttered. "I think we might have pushed it this time."

"Nah," Banana said happily, jumping up and brushing himself down. "He'll be fine."

"_He_ might. Though I dunno about you guys," Chicago said nervously. "But I'll be sleeping with one eye open..."

"It was worth it," Banana shrugged.

"I'm not so sure. That's _our_ tent that smells like that," Rolando muttered as the others bid their goodnights, leaving just the three of them to pin back the tent flaps in the hope the smell would dissipate somewhat before official 'lights out' time.

"Did you not see his face?" Banana asked, still chuckling at the memory.

"Nope," Brian said simply. "Too busy running."

"Well it was worth it," Banana assured him.

"I'll remind you of that when you're eating your own feet," Rolando offered, sitting down on the floor and leaning back on a pile of firewood.

Banana_ 'hmm'-_ed at that. "Not sure that's physically possible, to be honest."

"I'm sure he'll find a way."

* * *

And that was how Domovoi Butler would be stuck for at least the next four years of his life with a nickname that no-one outside the ten-or-so people who had witnessed the incident as a whole could decipher the reason behind.

He could only comfort himself with two things.

The first being the fact that there were worse nicknames to have. Banana, for example had gained his nickname through an even more embarrassing event - but that is another story.

And the second?

Well, as it turned out, once you were covered with the stuff, the substance that had leaked out of the stinkbomb Banana had planted didn't affect you half as much as it did others. Consequently, Dom had the tent pretty much to himself until the smell dispersed to a less-vicious level and, as punishment to his fellows, the boy they now called 'Cookie' refused to wash for a whole week.

* * *

**Well, writing it was fun, so we hope reading it was too :)**

**Quick Update because: It was written. Already we've been booted down the first page due to the current popularity of the AF fandom (yay!). And, well... just because we felt like it.**

**About the Academy-mates: It's going to be a little difficult to describe all of them immediately without excessively interrupting the flow of the story, which we hope was managed without doing so in the snippets of information in this chapter. Their true names are likely to be revealed in the italic quotes at the top, but if you're interested in any character in particular, just ask and we'll be happy to explain a bit more about them, either in the next chapter or in a PM.**

**Thanks for reading and we'd love to hear what you thought if you have the time,**

**Wolfy and Steinbock  
ooo  
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**12/08/12**

**Enjoy the Olympics Closing Ceremony if You're Watching It!**


	4. The One With The Misunderstanding

**Thanks to: _Sandd, Fowl Star 57_, _2whitie, Crazy Female LEPrecon _and_ HolidayBoredom _for the reviews.  
**

**WARNINGS: ****Quite a bit of swearing and innuendos.**

**(Ah come on... what did you expect? They're Academy lads in the prime of their teenage years. I'm in a youth group where the youngest are about 13 and the majority of them spout this sorta stuff - and worse - on a regular basis. Then again, maybe that's just our youth group...)**

* * *

**THE ACADEMY DAYS**

_**The One With The Misunderstanding**_

_**Profile Extract;** Charles **'Banana'** Smith_

_**Referring to the 'Cookie-Calling' incident in the park:**  
__When he saw his now grown-up friend standing next to his charge, he just couldn't help himself. It was certainly worth the beating, and he knew Butler wouldn't go as far as to harm his hands, seeing as how the big man knows how much his violin means to him. Besides, Banana's passed the point where he cared about the state of his face somewhere around the third broken nose. It looks like Owen Wilson's now, so who cares? There's nothing left to lose._

* * *

Domovoi Butler cracked open one eye suspiciously, glaring into the darkness of his tent.

People were screaming on the other side of the canvas.

Not screaming in a way which suggested terror - which was a good thing, but rather in a way which was intended to _invoke_ terror – which rather wasn't.

"I'll kill you! I will fecking _kill_ you, you son of a bitch! You sonova..."

"I swear I didn't know! I didn't know… no, no! Not the face! Not the…"

_Thwack _- a hit.

"Oww... holy shit… goddamit that hurt you bastard…"

_Thwack-smack –_ a returning hit, blocked.

A scuffling sound and then the heavy thud of someone taking the faster-than-taking-the-ladder route down from the watch-tower.

"What the heck going on here, then? Oh for… who's blood is that? Charlie, mate, get away from him. Pan, please calm down or I'll be forced to restrain you."

"Stay out of this John! You don't know what that little turd's done this time!"

"Hey, I haven't done anything…"

"Haven't done… get here and say that to my face you little shit…"

"Whoa there, Pan…"

The slapping sound of tent flaps being thrown back was joined by more voices.

_**"Che cosa sta succedendo?"**_ someone asked in groggy Italian – Rolando was awake then, and he wasn't the only one wondering what was going on.

"Who's bawling?"

"What's up?"

"What's all the yelling for?"

"Pan's going bandit about something again," another voice, Jake's, supplied, watching interestedly as the perpetrator danced out of reach, stood on a cinder with his bare feet, swore loudly and tripped onto his backside. To his current enemy, this was like a red flag to a bull and the he pounced, only to find himself blocked by the broad arms of the current watchman.

"Get the _hell_ off me, John!"

_Thwack._

There was a short silence where the hitter realised he'd hit the wrong guy and the hitee realised he should have anticipated the occurrence.

"Ouch," he grunted, making a snap decision. "Right that's it. Someone get Cookie, wouldja?"

He didn't need calling.

By the time the first noise of knuckles-to-face contact had occurred, Dom had sighed, thrown back the rough blanket from his shoulders and rolled onto his feet from his grass-mat. The base-camp tents were specially designed for Madam Ko's Bodyguarding Academy students, and so they were tall enough even for him to stand straight, so long as he stood in the middle where the A-framed structure was tallest. He stretched and ducked through the flaps of the door, surveying the sight before him before he began to make his own judgement on what had happened here.

Silhouetted against the light from the dying campfire were three figures he recognised instantly. One stood a good arm's length away from the others, nursing what Dom's excellent night-vision soon showed him was a merrily bleeding nose. The other two were locked in some sort of wrestling match, which Dom quickly realised was John with his arms locked round Panther's torso, trying to keep hold of him. Unfortunately for the large Australian, who would normally have had a reasonable chance at keeping hold of the equally large Irishman, the latter had managed to get an arm free and was currently trying to elbow his restrainer in the face.

"What the hell is going on?" Domovoi growled over the noise. "And does it have to be going on so loudly? I'm on watch at four."

"Panther's maggot and Banana's gone and done summit, or _someone _again," John grunted, trying to get a better hold of his captive. "Give us a hand, would you?"

Dom had spent more than enough time around the Australian to easily translate the term_ 'maggot'_ to _'pissed'_ – and Panther seemed to be _very_, in both terms of the word. Drunk _and_ furious.

"Yeah, you talk to the leprechaun. You both speak the same sodding lingo."

"Shut your face you little ginger c..."

Panther lunged at Banana again and John almost dislocated his shoulder holding him back.

Butler rolled his eyes and strode over to the struggling pair, caught the punch that Panther aimed at his face, wrapping his fingers around the fist and bending his friend's arm up his back, gesturing John to let go of him once he had the other arm secured.

"Let me at him! You know you can't keep hold of me anyway," Panther spat, still struggling.

Dom sighed through his nose, pulled back on the arms and kneed Panther forcefully in the back so that the lad's legs buckled and he could kneel over him, pinning him easily and holding his arms at an angle that was just this side of excruciatingly painful.

"What was that, Sean?" he smirked then yawned to emphasise just how easy the hold was to maintain on his drunken friend.

Panther struggled furiously but he was sober enough to know when he was caught and eventually slumped, face creating an indent in the mud. Still, Butler waited for a good few seconds before relaxing his grip slightly.

"Calm now?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes. Get your fecking hands off me already."

The words were angry but the rage wasn't there and so he released the thick wrists he had clamped together and stepped off his friend, offering him a hand to help him up. Panther took it grudgingly and was roughly hauled to his feet, brushing himself down.

"Now. What the hell happened this time?" Dom asked him.

"That little cu…" Panther growled, his face reverting back to the interesting ruddy colour it had been when he had first seen Banana that evening.

"_He_ walked in on me having a good time, the nosy…" Banana stabbed his finger at the larger teenager moodily. His nose - most probably broken - was still dripping blood onto the rag provided by John and he was _not_ pleased with this fact.

"Alright, alright I get it!" Butler silenced them with a slicing hand motion. He should probably go all _'Madam Ko'_ on them and bang their heads together. "Less of the insults. Just tell me the story. And someone go wake Chicago up. That nose is going to need seeing to."

And so whilst Wilhelm 'Chicago' Chigrakov, son of the Academy's resident doctor, sleepily patched up Banana's nose, Panther told of the event's that had led to him breaking the aforementioned facial feature of one of his closest friends.

The facts were these:

One Charles 'Banana' Smith, known ladies-man, fulltime jester and occasional cause of irritation of the group, had been discovered by Sean 'Panther' O'Tool enjoying himself rather indiscreetly with a certain lady. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the woman appeared to be Panther's latest flame, a fairly attractive barmaid at the only bar for several hundred miles that still accepted students of Ko – for various reasons, including fire, theft and third party damage.

After said 'discovery' Charlie had been dragged outside by a furious Sean. Luckily for Banana, Panther's normally lightning-fast reactions had been dimmed sufficiently by alcohol for him to escape the giant's grasp and sprint for the relative safety of the camp. Unfortunately for him, although Sean was usually a much slower runner, Banana (unlike a certain other student, although that is another story) had no intention of sprinting into camp mostly unclothed and paused to pull on a few essential items. By the time he was slinking to the safety of his tent - where he planned to hide behind Cookie for a bit until the only other Irishman of the camp calmed down - Panther had descended upon him and only the fact that John was on watch had saved him from a much more severe beating than he had already received.

"So let me get this straight," Domovoi sighed, wiping a hand down his face in a general expression of exasperation and gesturing as he spoke. "_You_ were screwing _his_ bird. And_ that_ is what _this _is all about?"

"Basically," Banana muttered, his voice slightly distorted by the dressing Chicago was carefully applying. "Overreaction, yet again."

"Keep still or else this isn't gonna fix well, pretty-boy," Wilhelm told him seriously, slapping the hand away as Banana reached up to feel the damage.

"Right," Dom muttered under his breath, clearly deciding on a verdict.

The audience that had gathered around the campfire at the noise of the kerfuffle, leant in to listen. It was always interesting the way the Butler could sort things out diplomatically, without angering either party and/or becoming an issue himself. A catalyst, one might say.

He raised a finger, both to stop the protests already forming on his friends' lips, and to count.

"One: Banana, what the hell? You_ know_ what he gets like," he paused to raise another finger. "Two: Panther, Jaysus fecking Christ, man - sorry John - _you _know what _he's_ like. And besides, you're pissed as two farts. Are you even sure it was her?"

"Yeah it was her, ya ballbag!"

"Fine. But even if it was, come on, mate. These things are never serious. We're moving on next week. What difference does it make?"

Panther looked stumped for a second, then mumbled his excuses. "S'more the fecking principal of it, if I'm honest. Woulda fecking let 'im have 'er if 'e'd 'ave asked."

"_Let me have her? _What do you mean _'let me'_? You cheeky bastard! I could have any girl I want, and you know it."

"Well ain't you the cat's pyjamas?" Panther drawled sarcastically.

Banana's answer was predictably insulting and Dom and John took one look at eachother before stepping between the pair.

Thankfully, Chicago spoke up before the confrontation could develop into another all-out brawl.

"Hell guys, what's so special about this girl anyway?"

"Nowt, really," Panther answered sullenly. "She's no show pony, like, but she'd do for a ride around the house."

"Translation, Cookie?" John asked with a sigh. He was well aware that his own Aussie-slang was difficult to translate, but at least there were _two_ of the Irishmen.

"Not a bonny looker, but not a bad fu…"

John coughed quietly and raised an eyebrow. Of all of them, he was slightly more prude and believed at least that women should be referred to with a little more respect than the rest of the group so often used.

"…well you get the idea," Dom finished awkwardly.

"Alright. What's the lucky gal's name anyway?" John asked.

The answers were spoken over eachother simultaneously.

"Cherice."

"Alicia."

And then…

"_What?_"

There was a moment's silence.

"She gave me a fake name?" Banana said, sounding both dumbfounded and affronted at the same time.

"Or me," Panther shrugged, beginning to calm down. His metabolism might not have been as fast as some of the other students, but any student of Ko learnt the art of sobering up quickly. And it wasn't taught in lessons on the standard timetable, either.

"I have a suggestion," Chicago said carefully, even going so far as to raise a hand tentatively.

The glares of the two disputees were turned on him and he shrunk slightly, but Dom gestured him to continue.

"Erm… I've heard of these two."

"Two?"

"Yeah. When we were over here last year, some of the other blokes got into a scrap about it. My Pa thought it was hilarious," he chuckled slightly at the memory.

"Spill it, Chicago," Panther snapped, not in the mood for jokes.

"Well this one guy ended up with a bar-stool stuck over his head…"

"Chicago!"

"Twins," Wilhelm blurted. "They're twins."

"You're kidding, right?" John shook his head, laughing.

Panther barked a short-laugh and shook his head. "Ah screw it. Who knows who the hell it was? Like Cookster says, we leave in a few days and I guess I can let you off this time."

"Oh cheers man," Banana said sarcastically. "Because I was, like, _sooo_ worried just then…"

"I _can_ change my mind you know," Panther growled, but it was more good-natured than threatening and John and Dom stood down a little more confidently than they first had.

"Okidoki, folks," John said, clapping his hands once. "Nothing to see here, go back to your knitting."

The small crowd dispersed, muttering and chuckling amongst themselves.

"Hey Pan?" Banana called, just as the larger man reached his tent.

"I genuinely didn't know you were starting anything serious with her…"

"Nah, I wasn't. Cookie's right anyway. I'll probably never see her face again after next week."

"Well, still... I'm sorry, man. You know?"

Banana apologising when not under immediate threat of decapitation was rare, but Panther wasn't about to go all soft on him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. And you would be a fuck-lot sorrier if it wasn't for Johnny-boy back there."

Banana laughed, then stopped as though a thought had just hit him.

"What?" Panther asked suspiciously.

"Well I was just thinking… If you're sure you'll _'let me have her'_ as you put it…"

"_What?_" Panther repeated, his brow beginning to furrow.

Dom, recognising his friend's danger-warnings took a step back to watch. John too, seemed to concur with his opinion of Banana having already used his get-out-of-jail-free card for today and that whatever he said next was on his own head.

"I was just thinking… you know?" he said smirking. "_Twins_, eh?"

Panther threw a half-hearted punch but Banana had already skipped out of range and disappeared out of sight, cackling gleefully.

"Bastard," Panther muttered.

"_Lucky _bastard," Dom corrected, heading for his tent for the few precious hours of sleep before his turn on watch.

"Huh. Not if Ko finds out," John commented, making his way back to the watch-tower.

"Which she might if he pisses me off _one more time_…" Panther threatened hollowly. It was an unwritten rule to deal with disputes without _'tattling to Mummy'_.

Not that anyone would ever call Madam Ko _'Mummy'_, of course, but still…

"Oh come off it, Pan," Chicago laughed, packing up his first-aid kit. "Like you wouldn't have had a shot at it if you'd have thought of it first."

The second he'd spoken he regretted it.

Panther's eyes lit up and he started to move purposefully towards the edge of camp.

"You know what Chic?" he said, baring his teeth in a smile that showed his intentions fairly clearly. "You're right. See you at breakfast, fellars."

And then he jogged off into the night, presumably to either get there first, or to compete for the affections of the females in question.

Wilhelm sighed.

He had a feeling that wouldn't be the last time today he would find himself patching up Banana's nose…

* * *

**Apologise to Owen Wilson to the comparison to Banana's nose, but hey, you know, his nose is quite spectacular.**

**Hope that expanded your knowledge of the boys a little more. We plan to stick a bit of a profile extract at the top of most chapters so you get to know them quicker. And a heading title for what 'era' the story is from.**

**We've also 'borrowed' the 'F.R.I.E.N.D.S' style of chapter/episode naming because... well to be honest because it's a quick fix and we're a little bit lazy like that haha :)**

**Oh and the 'The facts were these...' bit is off a program called 'Pushing Daisies' where a pie-maker has the power to bring dead things back to life by touching them. It's rather funny actually :) And I think one of the Weasley Twins might've inspired John's _'go back to your knitting'_ comment...**

**Right. Think that's all the disclaimers done...**

**We hope you enjoyed it, feel free to let us know either way!**

**Wolfy and Steinbock  
ooo  
O**


	5. The One With All The Splinters

**Thanks to: _Sandd, 2whitie, Crazy Female LEPrecon, Shadow Huntress, Fowl Star 57, Crimson Dawnbreak (x4), 44lefty_ and the two _Guest_s**

**for the reviews.**

**You guys are the reason we bother posting more up :)**

**WARNINGS: Quite a lot of swearing. Particularly 'effing off our favourite Cookie. Although I'm sure you'll forgive him once you find out why...**

**Innuendos-galore as per usual.**

**{Other soft drinks and biscuits are available}**

* * *

**THE PARIS YEARS**

_**The One With All The Splinters**_

**Profile Extracts;**

**Jake - **_Jake's actually from Chicago, which he uses all the time to make Wilhelm, who has always wanted to go there, jealous. He's black and gay, which didn't matter at Madam Ko's and in the real world people definitely think twice about giving him crap about either of these things. He may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but he makes up for it with his eagerness to help. He's also very adept at hand-to-hand combat and can be rather over-protective of his friends.__  
_

**Jean - **_The only 'girl' of the group. One of the only 5 females to ever pass the physical entry exam, let alone gain her Blue Diamond tattoo. __Born in Switzerland, she enrolled in the Academy whilst it was in her home country. She's rather short, which she uses as an advantage when people underestimate her. Most likely to switch the nickname 'Cookie' for 'Guetzli (the Swiss word for 'sweets') she also has a severe phobia of goldfish, which her friends enjoy using to get her back for things._

* * *

To ask why Domovoi Butler was running through a cactus field at twenty past midnight on a stormy autumn evening, would be entirely pointless.

Firstly, he wouldn't tell you, of course.

Even when his friends asked later, he would only mutter something about taking a shortcut. He'd omit the part about being pursued by a couple of guard dogs after leaping over a fence he really probably shouldn't have, but that was short-cuts for you. Or _his_ shortcuts, at any rate.

Secondly, no-one in their right mind would dare to question him on his actions. Ever.

Particularly considering how he looked now…

Which was, Jake thought as he peered blearily through the peep-hole of the flat's door. Pretty damn hilarious.

Not that he said that out loud.

No, instead he just took the door off the chain some idiot (most probably Brian) had left on, locking Cookie (and anyone else who wasn't currently snoring away in their beds) out for the night and opened the door.

"Alright, alright! I'm coming already, hold your horses you impatient…" Jake hauled open the door and a soaked and incredibly pissed off Butler crashed through. "Jesus Christ, man. You didn't have to break the door down - I said I was c… Whoa shit! What the hell did you do to your face?"

"Oh cheers a lot, Jake," Dom grumbled, rubbing at his face furiously.

"No, I mean seriously, man. What the hell?" Jake yelped, realising that his friend was not only soaked (which was funny) but was also sporting half as many spines as a porcupine (which was not).

"Just... stop staring and help me out here!"

Jake recoiled in horror and Dom took one look at him, saw it was futile asking again and shoved passed him in the direction of the sofa, crashing down onto it to being the long and arduous job of plucking cacti spines out of most of the square inches of skin of his face and hands. Unfortunately, he crashed down a little too forcibly, forgetting that the spines weren't only embedded in visible places.

He yelled some variation of cursing in various languages and rolled over, burying his face in the sofa, again a little too forcefully and almost whimpering with the pain._ Almost_. He was a Butler. They don't _'whimper'_. Ever.

Jake crept closer, even going so far as daring to pat his friend on the back gently.

"Um… are you OK, mate?"

"It's not just my face…" the Butler mumbled into a cushion. "It's my entire fecking body."

"Oh. Right," Jake said, stepping from foot-to-foot nervously. "Anything I can do?"

"Just… just go get me something to drink. And Chicago. And some tweezers or something…"

"R...right. Drink. Right..." Jake stammered, diving into the kitchen and pouring the nearest bottle into a suspiciously murky-looking glass and heaping sugar from the pot on the shelf above the kettle. A couple of tea-crystals ended up in the cola, but Dom would have to deal with that. The liquid reacted violently to the sugar, foaming over the top of the glass and all over the side, floor and Jake himself.

"Jake? Alcohol doesn't fizz." Dom growled. "And where the _hell_ is Chicago?"

Jake decided not to point out that champagne and sparkling wine, amongst other alcohol-based beverages did indeed fizz. That probably wasn't what his rather spiky friend wanted to hear right now.

"Out. He's still out with Banana, I think."

"Well that's just great... Bloody_ marvellous_."

"Here. Drink this," Jake flustered, shoving the glass at him. Dom downed a gulp, swallowing it and choking back the froth.

"What the chuffing hell is that?" he choked, spitting onto the rug.

"Coke. With sugar in it. For the shock."

"I'm not in _shock,_ Jacob! I'm in fucking _pain, _here," Dom snarled. "And that is _not_ coke. It tastes like shit."

"Err... I suppose it might be Pepsi. Oh wait... It's Dr Pepper. Which is kinda funny when you think about it. Doctor, gettit? Too make you better?"

"Jake?" Dom exhaled heavily through his nose in forced calm, clearing the fizzy residue.

"Yes?"

"Any chance you could shut the hell up, go get some tweezers and help me start pulling the bastards out. Or a knife. Yeah, actually - get me knife!"

"Cookie, I really don't think..." Jake began apprehensively, trying to mentally locate the majority of the knives in the flat so that he could start hiding them before Dom got hold of one and started digging holes in himself.

"And put some alcohol in this shit," he ordered, practically throwing the glass back.

"We've only got Jack Daniels left..."

"Good. JD and Coke. Excellent," he growled, tugging spines out of the back of his hand with his teeth.

"It's Dr Pepper, remember? And the JD is Pan's and you know how he gets when..."

"Jake? How else can I express the fact that _I don't give a flying fuck. _Now_ pour it_."

Jake snapped into action, deciding that there would be no point in Panther _not_ killing him later if Cookie killed him now and, with a bit of a wince, he glugged a hefty slug of the golden liquid into the glass before handing it back.

The Butler downed it in three chugs and made the universal hand gesture for _'refill'. _Jake inched forwards and gave him a higher ratio of the alcohol. For medicinal purposes, of course.

"Good. Right. Now. Knife or something," Jake's 'patient' grunted, sweeping a hand across the suspiciously sticky underside of the couch.

"Cookie, I think Jean might've have tweezers you could bor... put that _down!_"

Dom grunted in response, scraping the knife he'd found under the sofa along his skin in the method more commonly used to remove insect stings without expelling the poison.

"Put what down?" a voice asked blearily. "And no, Jean does not have tweezers. What do you think I am? A girl?"

"Jean!" Jake breathed, relieved. "Talk to him will you? I haven't a clue what he's done, but he's covered in these spiky things and now... and now he's _bleeding_ on the sofa!_ Goddamit_ Cookie! Soak it up with your shirt or something! You _know_ bloodstains are a nightmare to get out!"

Jean pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, as she often did when utterly exasperated with he all-male flatmates.

"Right. Jake, I'm sure Ro' has some tweezers. He's all metro-sexual like that. Go look in the bathroom cabinet. Next to the anti-septic wipes. Actually, bring those too."

Jake nodded, leaving quickly. Glad of an excuse to get away from the blood. For a trained killer, he never had been a fan of the red stuff.

"And Cookie, put that knife down or so help me I will slap you."

"Oh fuck off," he growled.

"Fine. Poke holes in yourself. See if I care."

Dom opened his mouth to speak then closed it again, stubbornly silent. Jean reached over and turned on the lamp next to him.

"Better?"

"Yeah...thanks."

"I found them!" Jake called from the bathroom and leapt into the hallway, offering the tweezers to Jean.

"Oh no, no, no. Not to me. Macho over there doesn't _need _any help," Jean said sarcastically. "Give them to him."

Jake took them back and tentatively handed them over to Dom, who quickly realised that his hands, even without the swelling caused by the spines, were too large to achieve the acute manipulation required to grab the spines and pull them out. He struggled on stubbornly for a few minutes in silence until Jean finally spoke up.

"You want a hand with that?"

"No."

A few more minutes silence.

"How about now?"

"No, Jean."

"Aww come on you know I love shit like this."

"I don't care if you like pulling spines out of people, you sadistic shite. You're not pulling them out of me."

"Please…"

"_No._"

Silence.

A few more failed attempts to grab a splinter.

Swearing under his breath.

The tweezers clattered to the floor.

"Shite."

"Help?"

"Oh for the love of… Fine. Right. Yes, help me."

"Alright then, come here helpless," Jean chuckled, pinching the tweezers easily off the floor. "Budge up. Honestly, what would you boys do without me, eh?"

"Eat eachother probably," Jake said mildly, leaning over the back of the sofa for a closer look.

Jean shoved her giant friend so that he only took up half of the three-seater and, grabbing one of her friend's bear-like hands and resting it on her knee, she set to work.

"Probably. Hopeless tossers, the lot of you."

"Shut it," Dom muttered, but he didn't flinch as she began to remove the inch-long spines out of his skin, gritting her teeth with glee.

"Jean that is disgusting!" Jake wrinkled his nose as she began laying the bloodied splinters out in a line on the surface of the grubby coffee table.

"Go to bed then, you big puff."

"Hey," Jake sulked. "I could find that offensive you know..."

"Ah shaddup," she laughed, flicking a bloodied wipe at him.

"OK, OK I'm going!" he yelped, backing off quickly. "Wake me up if he starts dying or summit."

"Because that will help how, exactly?" Dom asked moodily.

"I'm so unappreciated round here! You'd still be hammering down the door if it wasn't for me," Jake pouted and slouched off back to the room he shared with Chicago muttering about the general ungratefulness of his 'so called friends'.

"So…" Jean asked after a few minutes of careful extraction. "You piss off a porcupine or something?"

"Short-cut," he muttered, pulling a spine out of his lip sullenly.

"What through? A cactus field?"

"Yup."

Jean decided it was easier not to ask and carried on plucking gently but firmly until eventually nothing but damaged skin remained on his arms, face and neck.

"Right, where else?"

"Nowhere. My jacket and jeans stopped the rest."

"Liar."

"No, seriously I'm fine."

"Oh, so you won't mind if I do this then?" Jean asked, bouncing two hands firmly on his knees, forcing him down onto the sofa.

Being a Butler, he didn't even squeak at the pain, but the tightening of his neck muscles was obvious to his long-time friend and she poked him accusingly.

"Liar," she repeated. "Now are you going to let me get them out or what?"

"Or what," Dom said stubbornly.

"Come on, Cookie. You want to end up in hospital or something? They'll go septic."

"I'll wait for Chicago."

"Why? Because he's seen your backside before?"

"Yes."

Jean raised an eyebrow. "Did you mean to say that out loud, because I know all you lads are pretty close but…"

"Shut it, Jean. You are _not_ pulling spines out of my arse."

"Whatever you say,_ Guetzli,_" Jean rolled her eyes. "Just give me five minutes to convince you to change your mind before you slink off and cry into your pillow all night..."

He glared at her, but she vanished into her room and returned moments later with her 'bargaining chips'.

And although any Butler can be more stubborn than a donkey faced with a cattle-grid, Jean knew exactly which buttons to press to get her friend to do exactly what she wanted, which was why, a few minutes later, Dom was chewing his way methodically through a family-sized pack of Oreos.

"Right, take them off then."

Dom paused his chewing. "You're serious?"

"Yes Dom, I am. And as you are eating my food, you better take your pants off right now, before I kill you with these tweezers."

"Well that's the most aggressively anyone's ever asked me to do that before…" he muttered, loosening his belt and eyeing the tweezers critically before deciding that yes, she probably could murder him with the safety-blunted point of the implement.

"Ah don't complain, I know you love it really."

Dom looked at her incredulously, but since the spines actually did sting a bit and the likelihood of his friend impaling him with the tweezers was high, he dropped his trousers to his knees and lay on the sofa face down, stuffing another Oreo in his mouth as Jean knelt beside him on the floor and got to work.

"You done yet?"

"Nearly. And stop flinching or so help me I will sit on you."

"I'm not _flinching_. And _you_ sit on_ me_? Because, yeah, that will keep me down," Dom snorted.

"More than you think," Jean grunted, leaping up and sitting on the small of his back, leaning forwards and digging her thumbs into the tendons on the back of his knees to help prevent him from bucking her off. "See?"

"I could still get up if I wanted to," he muttered sourly.

"Go on then... Oh wait, actually, don't move. I've spotted another one."

This would have been just fine - Jean sat on Dom, casually hauling the small spines out of the back of his legs - had Banana not arrived home to see what he thought was a rather interesting manoeuvre.

"I'm _ho-oome_… " he began with a yodel but finished with a yelp as he span around, slamming the door without an ounce of thought to any of his sleeping teammates.

"Ah shit," Dom mumbled into the cushion.

"My eyes!" Banana cried. "My poor innocent eyes have been tarnished! Christ guys, couldn't you get a room or something?"

"Chill, Banana. It's not what it looks like," Jean sighed, rolling off Dom with a thud. "And I'm not sure your eyes were even _born_ innocent."

"Really? Because _I'm_ sure that position has an actual _name_," Banana said, hands still clamped over his face.

"Oh shut up," Dom grumbled, standing and hoisting up his jeans. "I was on my face."

"That makes no difference. I'm fairly sure you've been shagged lying on your face before."

"If his ass wasn't so sore I'm betting he would chase you down and kill you for that," Jean commented mildly,

"And do I _want_ to know why his arse is sore?" Banana snorted through his fingers.

"Digging a hole, Jean. Digging a hole," Cookie growled. "And I hope you got them all because I am _not _going through that again."

"Yup, all gone... probably. Unless you start growing lumps the size of golf balls, in which case let me know. You know I like popping abscesses and stuff like that."

"So… just out of interest, Jean," Banana asked, daring to look. "If you weren't… you know, _being adventurous_… what exactly _were_ you doing sat on top of Cookie on the sofa?"

"Plucking splinters out of his ass," Jean said calmly, as though this was normal.

Banana paused for a second, then his eyes cleared slightly and he shrugged.

"Oh, OK then. Do we have any juice? Coz I really need to down summit before I go to bed or I am going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning."

"Where've you left Chic, by the way?" Jean asked, frowning.

"Erm..."

"I swear to God if you've cuffed him to a lamppost again..."

"Chill out, Jean. He'll be fine," Dom told him, buckling his belt. "And Banana there's some cruddy-tasting pop on the side. I don't think Jake poured the JD straight into it,"

"Ah well, if he did, he did," Banana shrugged, locating and gulping directly from the plastic bottle.

"Wouldn't that sort of counteract the whole point of downing liquid to avoid a hangover?"

"Ah what do you know, prickle-butt?" Banana snorted, albeit already moving swiftly to the safety of the bedrooms. If there was anything more dangerous than poking a bear with a stick, it was poking a_ stung_ bear with a stick.

* * *

When Wilhelm arrived safely home and was finally judged sober enough to react with an intelligent medical response, rather than just suggest someone stick a smiley-face plaster on whatever was causing the pain, he had a look at the various holes and pronounced that Jean had done a good job.

"You should thank her," he told Dom. "With your healing speed some of those would've healed over by now and then I'd have had to get my scalpel out. As it is, you should be fine in a couple of days."

"You sound miffed about the whole scalpel thing," Dom said accusingly.

"Well…"

"Why does everyone seem to have a fetish about causing me pain?"

"It's hardly pain Cookie, come on. Man-up."

"Can it, Chicago," the Butler said glaring at him. "I'd rather have got shot. Again."

"Really?" Wilhelm continued blithely. "I mean, it was only a few splinters."

* * *

**Well, this is a little crazier than the last couple of chapters, but hey, we hope you enjoyed your little sneak-peak into the complete and utter world of Madness our imaginations inhabit. Feel free to visit again some time if you think you can survive it :)**

**Let us know if you'd rather something a little more sensible next time or if you enjoyed this. We're not exactly writing to orders, but what you guys all think will probably help shape the direction the next one rambles off on. Honestly, it's like trying to control a rampaging elephant...**

**Wolfy and Steinbock  
****ooo  
**** O**

**p.s no offence to any any fizzy-drinks companies intended...**


	6. The One Where Everyone Hates Paintball

**Thanks to: _Crazy Female LEPrecon, Bookwormgirl2, Jolinnn, Sandd, 44lefty_ and _Fowl Star 57_**

**It's really good to hear that you seem to like reading about the gang as much as we like writing about them because, well you know... with most of the cast made up entirely of OCs it's a little bit nerve-wracking to chuck them out there to fend for themselves. Not that they can't or anything, just that nobody knows them and sometimes people don't like that.**

**But hey, Mr. Colfer didn't exactly give us anyone from Butler's past other than Sid Commons and Justin Barre - and they weren't in the Academy.**

**Luckily Steinbock found these guys hanging around asking about some bloke called 'Cookie'...**

**WARNINGS: The usual swearing and mild innuendo. Considerable amounts and multi-linguistically. If that offends you, this is probably not for you.**

* * *

**THE ACADEMY DAYS**

_**The One Where Everyone Hates Paintball**_

**Background Info: It is a given fact that Madam Ko's Bodyguarding Academy was never in the same place for more year. In fact, the students were rarely in the same place for more than a month. ****This story takes place in the depths of the Siberian wilderness in late autumn. Chilly, by anyone's standards. Of course Butler never needed a poncy heated suit for their little jaunt to the Arctic in TAI.**

**Feel free to skip this, but as a quick reminder, here are Butler's Academy mates:**

**'John' - not actually called 'John' at all. A good leader that the group looks up to - even Butler at times. Australian and a devout Catholic (or at least he tries to be - it gets a little hard when you're being trained to kill people with your bare hands...)**

**'Chicago' - his real name is Wilhelm Chigrakov, but nobody can be bother to pronounce his surname. He's the group's medic as he takes after his father.**

**'Panther' - Butler's fellow Irishman, but with considerably less morals. He's actually called 'Sean' but is rather good at climbing, if a little hefty.**

**'Brian' - a slightly rebellious Greek with another unpronounceable name. Doesn't take life too seriously.**

**'Banana' - nicknamed so after an unfortunate incident involving a bit of boasting turning out to be a bit of an exaggeration. Group joker, he makes it his duty to annoy each of the others at least once a day, particularly if he can get a rise out of them.**

**Jean - the only 'girl' of the group, although she won't take that as an excuse not to keep up with the lads. In fact, she often delights in beating them at things and then taking the mick.**

**Jake - generally taken to be the group's softie, but only if you're on his good side. Excellent at hand-to-hand combat - could even give Butler a run for his money on a good day.**

**Rolando - short. In stature and temper. He's Italian and often slips in a few words of his native tongue to emphasise his mood, be that furious at Banana for another one of his taunts or... well, read on and find out.**

**Cookie - believe it or not, you all know this guy best. And if you don't, perhaps you should re-read the first couple of chapters of this fic-set before you continue. **

**On with it then!**

* * *

It was times like this that Domovoi Butler was sure their sensei fixed everything to happen in the most irritating, difficult way she could possibly imagine. For nothing but her own amusement.

Out of 9 straws, who was the one to pick the long one? Sean bloody-fucking-seventeen-stone 'Panther' O'Tool, that's who. An 11.1% chance of him doing so and yet _still_ it had happened. Of course it wasn't as if nearly half of the team weren't already pushing 90kg by the age of 16, but Panther was a good 20kg again heavier even than Dom. 'Big boned', he argued. And he was, but that didn't mean he wasn't also carrying more weight than Madam Ko approved of, or that he didn't have muscles larger than the average pubescent gorilla.

"Couldn't have been Jean, could it?" Banana moaned, hoisting the pole he was carrying a little higher into the crook of his elbow. The pole was attached to a stretcher along with two others, each supporting a third of the considerable weight it bore.

"Oi, watch it would you? You just knocked a load of snow off that branch onto me…" Panther complained, just a hint of amusement in his tones.

"Shut up – you're supposed to be dead," Brian growled, removing a hand from one of the branches they had used to create the litter and poking his friend in the ribs.

"Well, technically he's not supposed to be dead because if he _was_ then we'd just leave the body behind," Chicago, their resident medic, pointed out from the front of the group. "According to Ko, the casualty he's simulating has a broken tibia…"

"Nobody cares, Chic," Jean grumbled.

She and Rolando had been lumbered with the back of the stretcher, as the lifting team was organised in pairs of similar height. Putting the tallest at the front and the shortest at the back with one pair in the middle meant that Panther was tilted backwards, keeping his head below his 'injured' leg in case it was 'bleeding'. It also meant that his weight was bearing down on the back two, actually leaving less weight for Dom and John at the front. Unfortunately, unless the shortest of the group did all the navigating, it was simply another disadvantage of being five-and-a-bit-footers in a group of giants.

They had been going for three hours now since they had been dropped off at their starting point. It was supposed to take them two days to get back to camp, but at this rate they were going to end up punished with a tardiness forfeit. As fit as the team were, with rucksacks added to Panther's weight, they were already carrying close to a fifth of a metric ton between them in kit including a survival shelter, food, stoves and a paintball gun each – the latter in order to tag any other teams they saw along the way.

The snow was over a foot deep in places. If it wasn't for the rest of the team ploughing a channel through it before them, Rolando and Jean would be up to their shins in it.

"Besides, he doesn't sound like he's in enough pain to be injured," Jake commented, checking the time on his watch and folding their simple map back into the safety of his jacket.

"That could be arranged," Rolando muttered.

"Alright guys, that's enough. Pan didn't ask to be the body," John said, feeling tempers rising. "But you know what Ko's like. He couldn't back out."

"No, but he doesn't have to sound so happy about it," Dom said accusingly.

"True," Panther said, sitting up slightly. "Hey guys? There's a beautiful view from up here."

"How about we drop him? Ready, on three…" Banana said, only half jokingly.

"Don't even think about it. I'm being serious anyway," Panther said, squinting into the setting sunlight. "There's a whole open valley coming up and it's covered in snow and the sun's hitting it just right and…"

"Great. We're all gonna go snow-blind, then. _Stupendo_," Rolando said, stumbling slightly in the deep snow and jolting the stretcher. "No way we're going to reach the pole first."

He referred to the thirty-foot wooden pole that was erected in the centre of every camp they made. When they were challenged to return to it, a flare would be attached to the top. The aim was to reach camp first, climb the pole and pull the cord which would set off the flare, indicating the winners of the challenge – and the winners of whatever reward Ko had cooked up. Or at least avoidance of the punishment.

"Pan – stop bloody moving or so help me I will _give_ you a reason to be carried!" Jean yelled, staggering with the shift in weight.

"Alright, alright," Panther grumbled, lying still and staring back up at the branches that had been passing overhead since noon. "But I'm just saying – it's pretty beautiful to be honest."

"And you all say I'm the puffster," Jake raised an eyebrow.

"Oh feck off," the Irishman mumbled, cheeks reddening. "The only snow we get back home is grey, right Cookie?"

Dom snorted an agreement. "Or yellow."

"Yeah, well I swear this stuff is like _silver_."

"And gold – I see it now," Chicago is, using the opportunity to check his compass was calibrated correctly. He'd already checked it for Ko's usual trick of jamming a piece of paperclip into the housing to distort the magnetic pull, but it was always good to check. Thankfully they were still headed in the right direction. He would not fancy breaking it to the team they needed to go back the way they had just come…

"How far to go is it?" Banana whined.

"Did you seriously just ask that? You are such a child."

"Just because you're so _old…_"

"I'm not even a year older than you, Charlie," John pointed out calmly.

"I _mean_ old in the _head_. I swear you're like 40 or something," Banana grouched. "Seriously, Chicago, how far?"

"Well," Chicago said, conferring with Jake. "How about we rest at the edge of these trees for a bit, check out how far it is across the open plane and then move when the sun goes down."

"And not sleep?" Brian stated the question miserably.

"Well if we want to get there before some time next week then yes," Jake said, consulting the map. "Without sleep."

"Oh well that sucks," Panther sighed dramatically.

"Shut your face and concentrate on thinking light thoughts," Cookie growled.

A few others seemed to be on the point of making a comment too, but then they reached the edge of the trees and could see what Panther had been describing.

The sun was low, highlighting the silhouette of mountain, rising majestically from the icy plateau, some five kilometres into the distance. Between them and it was a vast expanse of open, snow covered land - the wind lifting the loose flakes into gentle, swirling patterns in the darkening sky.

"Wow…" John breathed. "Makes it feel a little worth it, doesn't it?"

"Yeah…" Cookie murmured, taking a deep breath of the freezing air.

"Oi – some of us can't see past your fat heads, you know," Jean said grumpily.

"Well we might as well set him down here for a bit anyway," Chicago said. "We haven't stopped for like _hours_."

"You don't need to tell _us_that," Rolando groaned, lowering the stretcher with a wince on John's count.

But even the burning in their elbow joints and the budding blisters on their palms and forearms couldn't prevent them from standing and staring at the beauty before them.

"OK, I admit it. That is pretty beautiful," Jake said.

"Yeah…" Brian agreed, blinking into the sun.

They stood in silence until Jake decided that as beautiful as it was, someone had to break it to everyone that they had to get over that mountain they were admiring.

"Oh Jacob!" Jean moaned, staggering over and punching him in the arm. "You had to bloody-well ruin it, didn't you?"

"Sorry, but it's true," he shrugged.

"Yeah and enough admiring, there's no way we're heading out over that before sundown," Rolando said, scanning the area.

"Indeed," Cookie agreed, eyeing the land before them suspiciously. Nice place for an ambush. Very open. Nowhere to hide – or at least not with a casualty and definitely not from above. If they heard a 'copter coming it would be a case of bury yourself and hope they don't use the thermal imaging cameras. "I can't be arsed scrubbing paint off my kit for the rest of forever."

He was referring to the stains left by the paintballs substituted for bullets. The capsules were painful when they hit, the paint was permanent and not only that but it came in three shades of neon; green, orange and, most embarrassingly, pink. Once a student had been tagged with green, the shooters could switch to orange pellets. Once they had been tagged with orange, the shooters could move on to pink. Needless to say, most budding bodyguards preferred to roll in pig muck to cover the colours before it got that far, but it did happen. The paint also stained skin for a good month, but that is another story.

With the decision made and nothing to do but wait for it to get dark, the team set up there three stoves and cooked their meagre rations. It always seemed stupid to go short on food when they carried enough for double the amount of days they were scheduled to be out. But it always paid to be prepared. Once Ko had told them to meet back at camp and then moved the camp another 3 days walk away, involving some serious tracking and a hungry couple of days for those who had scoffed their rations in anticipation of a good meal back at camp.

With the sun went the last of the heat and the temperature plummeted well below the low minus degrees centigrade they had gotten used to throughout their stay in Siberia, to a much chillier minus thirty. As the darkness closed in, the wind picked up from its playful breeze to a harsher blast, verging on a roar. Visibility went from crystal clear to almost complete white-out. All that the light from their headtorches revealed was a mass of swirling shadows.

"Holy shit this is not fun," Banana yelled as they set out across the open valley.

"Just keep going – it's only 4K," Chicago bellowed over the wind. "It's only an hour."

But at this pace in the snow and wind, four kilometres was likely to be over two hour's trekking.

"Fuck this," Panther shouted suddenly and the stretcher lurched. He landed knee-deep in the snow, swearing again as the others stopped.

"Pan if Ko sees you in she'll go apeshit…"

"If Ko can see through this then she can do whatever the hell she wants to me," Panther snarled, stomping the feeling back into his feet. "I'm fucking freezing and we are never going to get there with you lot carrying me. I'll get back on tomorrow when it clears up and we're close to camp."

It was cheating. Technically. But that was one thing about Ko's exercises. Occasionally, breaking the rules was the only way to survive.

"Alright but keep the stretcher, we're not making another one. And rope up. I have a feeling this isn't going to get any better anytime soon," John ordered, unclipping a climbing rope from his bag and slinging the loop to Dom.

They linked the rope through the shoulder-straps of eachother's bags and began to walk in a line. The weather was so bad it was hard to tell what snow had fallen and what was still airborne.

By the time they reached the far side of the valley and collapsed under the shelter of the trees they could barely see for the ice frozen onto their eyelashes.

"No good. Got to stop. Can't…" Banana was mumbling over and over.

Rolando's normally olive skin was a shocking white as he leaned back and slid steadily down to the base of a tree. Jean's usual dry sense of humour seemed to have completely dried up and she sunk to the floor beside him, shivering violently. Jake too was shivering so much he could barely stand and beside him Brian was silent and still. The front of John's jacket was frozen solid. He had lead most of the way, rotating with Dom and Panther. As the three largest they were the only one's able to make constant progress through the shifting snow. Now Panther looked about ready to collapse back onto the wind-ragged stretcher and even the ever-stubborn Dom looked like he wouldn't say no to a free ride back to camp.

Chicago, as cold as he was, ripped one glove off with his teeth and busied himself checking their pulses and capillary refill times. There was little point. He already knew what he would find. Hypothermia was setting in. The best thing would be to keep moving, but with the team so tired and having just taken over 2 hours to cover a distance they could normally manage in less than 45 minutes, even carrying a stretcher…

"We need to get warm," he said through chattering teeth to John, always their unofficial leader.

"Yeah. Some sort of shelter. Quick as," John agreed, scraping ice from his cheeks with a wince. "Right. Up. All of you. Let's get this built."

Those that had sat down craned themselves up reluctantly, stiffening joints complaining painfully.

Together, with hardly any verbal communication required, they propped the makeshift stretcher between two trees against the wind and piled snow along the edges to block the gaps. Next they dug a hollow clear of drifts that had blown in onto the forest floor and used the dug-out snow to build a wall around the edge. The result was a crater surrounded by walls. It was barely big enough for all of them and it would have been preferable to either build an igloo or move further into the shelter of the forest. But the mountain rose steeply from the edge of the trees and in the open valley the wind was too fierce to be attempting to build any sort of structure.

"OK, everybody in," John shouted over the roaring wind.

They didn't need telling twice and piled into the dip.

"We should be getting into sleeping bags or something," Chicago said after a few minutes of silence.

Jean made an intelligible, negative-sounding noise and snuggled back deeper between Rolando and Dom. "Mmm fine like this, ta."

"You know they do say if you strip off in a sleeping bag you get warmer," Banana chuckled shakily. "And if you share a bag naked you'll almost definitely not get hypothermia…"

"I think I'll take my chances with the hypothermia," Jake shuddered.

"Well I'm up for it," Brian shrugged. "Not like any of us could get up to anything in this weather anyway. I'm fairly sure I've become a Bri_anne_ by now."

The group all began to laugh at that and John began to feel a little less worried. The storm would blow over, it always did. Whether that would be in four hours or four days, was another story.

* * *

It was hours later when they dared to move again, unpeeling themselves from the mound of frozen winter clothing, cracking themselves free and moving around to melt the solid ice. The wind was still blowing but the snow had lessened. It was still pitch black, but they had been learning night-navigation since the age of ten and this time it would just be a case of walk up until you started walking down again and then keep going until camp.

Dismantling the shelter felt a little like destroying their one lifeline, but it was either move now and hope the weather stayed marginally favourable, or sit here until they froze to death.

"Everyone one ready to go?" John asked.

"Or rather, is anybody not ready?" Dom added, shouldering his rucksack a little higher and taking point.

"Ready as we'll ever be," Jean said with a grim smile. "Now come on boys, not gonna get beaten by a girl, are you?"

Together they set off up the hill. The going was tough, and the way treacherous as they climbed up into the sparser trees and onto the rocky scree-slope, but at least it was warmer than sitting still

With any luck, they'd reach camp by mid-morning the next day, although they would have to begin carrying Panther again once they got within 10KM of camp, just to be safe.

It was about this that Chicago was thinking when he slipped.

The mountainside was steep and the ground underfoot was unstable and rocky, but they were accomplished climbers and nobody would have suspected it. The first anyone knew of it was his strangled yelp and then he was gone, sliding over the rocks down the mountain, almost taking the next three with him.

"Woah!" Jake yelled, snatching in thin air for the falling body. "Chic!"

"Shite!" Panther yelped, reaching out a hand to grab him as he tumbled past in a tangle of limbs and rucksack. His fist closed over one shoulder strap and he too would have been yanked off his feet had Brian not had the presence of mind to latch onto the back of him too. As a three they slid, gathering speed until with a resounding thud, they hit the nearest tree. Snow thundered out of the branches, covering the trio.

And then there was silence but for the wind.

"Christ – who was that?!" Banana asked, spinning round to count who was left standing.

Jake, who had been the next in line and missed Brian's rucksack by a hair's breadth, started a stumbling run down to where they lay, shouting over his shoulder. "Three of them – Chic, Pan and Bri."

By the time Dom and John had come down from the front, Jake and Rolando had already dug two of them out and Jean had sat them down, checking them for injuries. A couple of scratches was about all that Brian and Panther had received from the ordeal but Chicago, their medic-in-chief, the one who should be doing the checking, lay still and quiet in the snow.

"Is everyone OK? What happened?" John demanded.

"He just slipped I think," Jake said shakily. "I tried… I tried to grab him but…"

"It's alright Jake, it's no-one's fault," Dom said, dropping two his knees and swiftly assessing the situation. "Now come on, jump to it. Let's get him out of this snow and on something flat. Get that stretcher out – might come in useful after all."

Within seconds the stretcher was beside Chicago and his friends slid him gently from his position, curled slightly round the trunk of the tree, until he was lying flat. A true ambulance team would have done so with utmost care and at a speed that allowed for no mistakes. But in the harsh wilderness there was no time for anything other than a quick 'C-Clamp' of the head and neck before moving him on the count of three and trying not to knock anything out of place.

Chicago's hood had been knocked back in the fall and under the lip of his hat his head was split open across the brow.

"Get something to patch that," Dom said, tearing off his gloves, pulling up his jacket cuff and pressing the sleeve of his fleece to the wound.

Chicago woke up yelling.

"There we are, good to have you back buddy."

Chicago looked up and was treated to an upside-down view of Dom grinning encouragingly at him.

"Now come on medic-man," he continued. "What do we do to you?"

"What? What… ah fuck _ribs_…oww…" Chicago abandoned his attempt to sit up and gave several sharp, pain-repressing breaths. "Not good."

"And anywhere else?" John prompted, coming into his line of vision.

Dom pressed a gauze pad against Chicago's forehead and secured it with the duct-tape Jake passed him.

"I should have caught him. I should have…" Jake mumbled over and over. "Shit I'm sorry…"

Dom paused what he was doing to look sharply at him, taking in the guilt in his eyes. "Snap out of it, this is not your fault."

"Argh head… oww… gerroffme…" Chicago said with a frown, bringing the attention back to him.

"Yeah 'oww'. Come on Chic, eyes open. Anywhere else hurting?"

"Knees… shins… hey look – the stars are nice tonight," Chicago mumbled, eyelids flickering.

John looked up. Above them there was nothing but roiling, thick, grey clouds. He caught Dom's eye and saw the flicker of uncertainty behind them. There was a protocol for a genuine emergency. The first part was: You sorted it out yourself. No-one would be there in real-life to come and rescue you. The second part was to use the flare gun each group carried and wait for help. It also involved being ridiculed by the rest of the Academy for months to come, but teasing was nothing compared to losing a friend.

John's hand strayed unconsciously to his belt where the flare was kept.

Dom shook his head slightly. _Not yet._

"He OK?" Rolando asked.

John wavered his hand horizontally. "We need to get him back ASAP – get his head looked at."

Even Banana didn't make a joke, and instead began quickly dividing Chicago's bag between himself and the others.

"Here," Jean said, grabbing one of the items he removed. "Get this on him. And another two. Keep him warm."

"He lose any kit when he fell?" Dom asked, gesturing John to take over holding Chicago's head and patting his friend down, searching for any badly broken bones.

"Don't think so… we'll need that compass off him though," Jean said, shining her headtorch into the darkness.

"Not here. Must have dropped it," Dom told her, moving onto check each leg.

"I'll look. You guys get him set to go," she said, stepping carefully down the hill.

The others worked on readying the stretcher to lift, strapping Chicago still and he sleeping bags over him. They would have said "be careful" or "don't go too far" to her as she went, but it wasn't needed. She was just as much one of the lads as anyone else and did not take kindly to being treated as anything less than equal.

Which was why it was such as surprise when she suddenly spoke in a low voice, fear barely hidden from her tones. "Er… Cookie…"

"Busy Jean," Dom said, holding Chicago down as he bucked in pain at a touch to his right ankle.

"No seriously, Dom…"

He didn't answer her.

"That needs extra strapping," he told Jake, who leapt forward with one of the ropes and did as he was asked.

_"Domovoi!"_

The young Butler span round. Not even his mother called him that. Or at least not when he wasn't in trouble…

Jean was stood stock still, the compass swinging from one hand the only movement his sharp eyes picked up. For a second he wondered what was wrong. And then he saw the glint of two round spheres of reflection barely ten metres from Jean. He crouched low and picked up a rock, moving steadily forwards towards her.

"Coming, Jean," he said calmly, as though she had simply asked him to help her reach something on a high shelf.

The beast behind the eyes crouched low, tensed as though ready to spring. Even to Dom it looked huge, so to Jean it could only be more worrying.

"What is it?" Banana asked, concerned. And too loudly.

"_Juuust_a little pussy cat," Dom said slowly, closing the gap between himself and Jean. "Nothing to worry about, eh fellar? There's a good lad. Now you just be on your way and we won't have to get into a disagreement, will we?"

The Siberian tiger lifted her lips slightly to expose her canines and the boy became acutely away that his version of deadly weaponry was the rock clamped in his fist. Not for the first time, he wondered why the hell Madam Ko didn't let them carry live guns on training expeditions. A couple of paintballs would be nothing to this big cat, regardless of the colour. Not that he would have shot the beast before him without reason, but it would have been nice to have something to scare it off with other than his own voice and a pebble.

He appraised it. It was a truly beautiful animal.

_Narrower in the head than a male though,_ he thought.

Her more feminine features were striking and the eyes set into her brow regarded him with cunning intelligence. Right about then Dom would have rather have faced a bolshy male than this determined-looking female, possibly with cubs to feed.

"Nice and easy, there's a good girl…"

"Don't piss it off, Dom. What if it's a lad?" Jean said under her breath as he reached her shoulder.

"Nah look at her, she's a beautiful girl, aren't you? Yes, yes I see your teeth… don't need to see them any closer… I got great vision, you see. Would like to keep it that way too. Think you could just back off real slow and leave us alone?"

"Stop chatting it up, Cookie. Throw the rock," Banana called over as loudly as he dared.

"Quiet. He knows what he's doing," John said sharply, gently laying Chicago's head onto the stretcher and standing.

The tiger snarled, rising up out of her crouch. But she hunted with the element of surprise. And she had clearly lost it by now. Normally she avoided humans at all costs, but she had heard the cries of the injured and could smell the fear roiling off them.

Tigers usually didn't attack humans unless they were desperate. But to the tigress before him, they were prey like anything else, Dom realised.

"Alright girl, steady now…" he rose his voice slightly, drawing himself up and raising the fist with the rock in it. "Just back off, real slow like."

"You talking to me or the tiger?" Jean asked softly.

"Her. But yeah, both of you to be honest. Try to get behind me."

"What, so you get eaten first? I'm not…"

"Just do it, Jean," Cookie said in the same low, calming voice. "Please."

Jean stepped back carefully and the tiger let out a rumble of frustration.

"It's alright. We're not going to hurt you. It's alright…"

Dom doubted the tiger was thinking the same, but it helped to keep talking as they took careful steps back to the relative safety of the group.

"We're just going to leave you to your evening and be on our way… that OK? Easy there…"

A loose stone crunched under Dom's foot and he froze. If he lifted his boot, there was every chance he would start a small-scale rockslide – which would either scare the tiger off or spur her into action.

But he couldn't very well stay here for the rest of his life.

He lifted his foot.

As though in slow motion the shard of mountain trickled forward, bounced once and then soared towards the tigress. Taking this as an attack, she leapt towards them with a snarl. Without hesitation, Dom threw the rock in his hand and it bounced off her skull like a wasp off a windshield. That was all he could have done and Dom had already braced himself for the impact of 250lbs of angry, hungry tigress with sharp claws and teeth when there was a fizzing whoosh and suddenly the world was illuminated by a tremendous hissing, heat that crackled and burned in a blinding red-orange light.

"Eyes shut!" John yelled, a second too late.

But Dom's eyes were already squeezed shut instinctively against the light, despite every part of his body bar his retinas screaming at him to leave them open and defend himself from the tigress. With a snarl of pain and fright, she turned tail and vanished into the comforting darkness of the forest. Dom almost wished he could follow her. His vision was a spiral of light and zooming dark patches.

"Shite, bollock, wank…" he muttered, scrubbing at his eyelids.

"Here, grab hold," Jean pulled one hand off his face and Dom got up off ground he hadn't even realised he'd fallen onto. "Trust me."

Dom said nothing but followed on, away from the still-hissing flare. Jean knew he trusted her. She was one of the very few people he did.

"Come on, Guetzli. Let's get back before she decides to have another go," she said, shielding her eyes from the glare and scanning the trees for the tiger. With everyone fit and well, the tigers wouldn't be so much of a problem. But with Chicago out and everyone preoccupied with lifting him…

"Well there goes our emergency flare," Brian said matter-of-factly as the flare flickered away on the ground, invisible to anyone looking for them.

_There goes our last chance of calling for help,_ John thought less-brightly, turning to check on Dom. It had been he who had fired the flare-gun and although he was a good shot, he'd erred on the low-side, anticipating the other boy falling backwards at the same time the tiger leapt forwards. Sure, it was one of God's creatures and the big man himself probably objected to John's firing at one of his more beautiful creations, but John rather preferred his friend's survival over the discomfort of a tiger. Besides, although the tail of the flare had singed Dom's jacket, the tiger had probably gotten away scot-free.

"Are you alright, mate?" he asked, concernedly.

"Yeah, just a few black spots. They'll pass soon enough," Dom didn't add _'I hope'_. Him being partially blinded, no matter how temporarily, was not something everyone needed in the current situation.

"Get to the back with me. You're not leading if you can't see properly," John ordered.

"Me and Bri will take front," Jake said, stepping into position. "I'll keep an eye on Chic."

John nodded. "OK, you guys fill the gap."

Panther and Banana stepped forward, leaving Rolando and Jean standing back.

"We're gonna try a lift, ready?" John asked.

The team nodded, fingers tightening round the poles sticking out from the stretcher. On the count they lifted and Chicago whimpered in pain, thrashing slightly.

"Woah – down, put him down," John said quickly. "He's going to need holding. Either we spin him and someone walks behind or Ro' climbs aboard and holds him down."

"Seriously? Why not Jean – she's lighter," Rolando scowled.

"Because Jean's a better navigator," John said, with only a hint of teasing in his voice.

But it was true, so Rolando grumbled and climbed onto the stretcher, settling himself awkwardly with his knees either side of his friend's chest.

"If he wakes up now you have some explaining to do…" Banana sniggered.

"_Vaffanculo,_" Rolando muttered, lifting Chicago's eyelids and checking his pupils. "You're the one who has to lift us."

"Right, on three," John said, snapping them back to concentration. "One, two, three, _lift…_"

It was heavier, obviously. But not unmanageable.

"Well, they weigh less than you, Pan," Brian joked.

Had he not been focussing on keeping his side of the stretcher level with Banana's, Panther would have kicked him.

"Think you can get us home, Jean?" John asked as Jean took point.

Jean was a good navigator, but she sometimes lacked confidence under pressure.

"What do I look like, an idiot?" she said, giving him a determined look. "Alrighty boys, let's go home."

They kept moving. There was no time to sleep. Between possible tiger attacks and the weather hardly letting up, there was no time for stopping for more than to adjust their grip and shake out their arms every couple of kilometres. When they crested the ridge, there was a short burst of triumph and hope, almost immediately wiped out by the fact that walking downhill was far more hazardous than walking up. They span Chicago so that his head wasn't in danger of being the first thing to hit the floor if they fell. Rolando jumped off and held onto the back of the stretcher, ready to dig his heels in should they slip. As they drew closer to the camp, John suggested they make some sort of white flag from a t-shirt as a sign that they were no longer active as a threat to the other groups and were simply trying to get back in one piece.

It was a long night. But by the time dawn broke they had entered the trees and Dom's eyesight had returned to normal. He kept a sharp lookout for the tigress. They never saw her, although whether that was because she had moved on to prey with less fight, or because she was hiding herself well, they didn't know.

"OK, we're about 4K from camp," Jean announced, looking as tired as they felt. She may have been doing less of the physical work, but it was mentally draining to keep them on the right bearing and avoid obstacles they couldn't hope to traverse over with the stretcher.

"I think I love you a little bit, Jeany," Banana groaned thankfully. "My God, if Ko's moved on I swear I'm going to…"

"Going to what?" Panther asked drily. "Cry?"

"Yeah, that. Or maybe break an ankle so that I can cadge a lift on this thing."

"Yeah don't bet on it," Brian said with a grin. "We could just leave you for tiger bait."

"Talking of which, what was all that lion-tamer stuff you were doing, Cookie?" Banana asked, brushing over the taunt. "I mean, sure it's worked on rabid dogs before – but tigers?"

"What else could I have done?" Dom shrugged. "Anyway, it worked."

"Not as well as that flare did," Jake pointed out. "Did you see the look on its face?"

"No, I didn't actually fecking see _anything_ once that exploded over my head," Dom said sarcastically.

"Well my apologies," John said, in a mock-affronted manner. "Next time I'll just let the tiger eat you, eh?"

"Sounded about ready to _marry_ it to be honest…" Banana said with a grin.

"I swear if we didn't need you to carry part of this stretcher, I would feed you to my future wife," the Butler growled.

More than one of them laughed and they continued to make their way down the mountainside until the ground finally levelled out. And they began to realise the pain in their shins and knees from the trek downwards.

"Man it feels good to be on flat ground…" Banana groaned. "How's he doing, Ro?"

"Cold," Rolando said with a shrug. "Still breathing, though. Keeps waking up and asking us to ask him what day it is."

"Why – does he know?" Panther asked.

"Nope. Not a clue. I asked him – he said January," Jake said a little worriedly.

"January?" Banana twisted round to ask.

"Better than when he said 'yellow'," Brian shrugged.

"Shit – how hard did he hit his head?"

"I'm erring on the side of _rather_," John said grimly. "How far, Jean?"

"Two kilometres less than you last asked," Jean said a little exasperatedly. "Look, do one of you want to swap out and I'll carry for a bit?"

"Well if you're offering," Banana said hopefully.

"Group vote: Jean keeps navvying. All in favour, say aye," Brian said quickly.

A chorus of 'aye' echoed loudly through the trees.

"Hmm… it would seem like the rest of us actually want to get back to camp some time today," Dom shrugged.

"Alright, shut up Dr. Dolittle," Banana retorted.

"Alright, Mr. Does Nothing," Dom smirked.

"Alright you two," John sighed.

"Alright how are we going to explain this to Ko?" Jake asked, glancing at Chicago's pale face.

"Alright enough with the alrights already," Panther groaned. "To think I could have been on that bloody stretcher if he hadn't fallen over like a fecking idiot and twisted his bloody ankle…argh!"

For a second Dom thought that might have just been the most ironic sentence his fellow countryman had every uttered, particularly as the exclamation was accompanied by a sharp lurch of the stretcher.

Unfortunately for Panther, he hadn't just twisted his ankle.

"Shots – get down!" Jean yelped, hitting the floor quickly.

The others followed suit, lowering the stretcher a lot less gently than Jake, John, or indeed Chicago himself would have liked.

But it was too late. With one glance they could each see that the majority of the others were splattered in the same shade of neon green.

"Fecking goddam wankers!" Panther yelled, un-holstering his own and paintball gun and returning fire.

Within seconds he, Dom and Jean were each on pink paintballs and members of the other team were scattering. They fell into a protective circle around the stretcher, covering Chicago with the sleeping bags and their own bodies. It would be unfair if he got tagged while he wasn't able to defend himself.

"Haha fuckers! That's right – keep running!" Panther whooped after them.

"Run, run for your clean pants!"

"Clean pants?" Brian chuckled. "You don't half chat some bollocks, Banana,"

"Ah shut up," Banana laughed, throwing a handful of snow at him.

"How the hell are we going to get rid of all this goddam paint – sorry John," Jake wondered aloud. "It's all over the sleeping bags and everything for fuck's sake. Couldn't they see we have an actual, genuine casualty?"

"Probably don't give a shit. Bloody back-stabbing cu…"

"Calm down, Rolando," John said, wiping paint off his chin with the back of his hand. "We'd have done the same."

"Not with the flag up," Rolando growled. "Bastards."

"Anybody get pinked?" Jake asked, checking on Chicago.

"One orange – anybody else?" Panther said, looking around.

"Just you – obviously more of you to hit," Banana chuckled.

"Ah shut it you – I think I got McCoy right in the arse-cheek anyway. Three colours. That's him on forfeits for a week."

"If we ever get back. If they're shooting around here then they aren't tucked up in a tent somewhere. Seems like she's moved us on if you ask me."

"Seriously? Then what are we supposed to do?" Jake asked. "I mean, Chic needs some sort of proper medical shit done to him and the only one who can sort that out is his dad. And we've used our flare as sodding cat repellent…"

"Me and Pan could go track one of the others down and get hold of their flare," Dom suggested.

"Alright but not Pan. One more shot and he's on dunny duty. Take Brian with you instead," John nodded.

"Or," said Jean, who had been quiet for a while, staring into the trees. "We could just ask Ko for a lift…"

The others span round, paintball guns raised defensively, as though they would help under a genuine attack.

Camouflaged expertly with its surrounding, a tent was set up mere metres away from them and out of it stepped a diminutive figure with a long, thin cane in her hand.

"I see you have switched your casualty," she said as way of greeting. There was a hint of disapproval in her voice, but not judgement as of yet.

"_Sensei_," John said with a dip of his head. "We had to. We have a genuine casualty."

"Injuries?"

"Head injury, few scratches elsewhere, something wrong with an ankle and he's hit his ribs."

"I see," she said curtly. "Anything else I should know?"

The group looked at eachother. In amongst snowstorms, escaping from tigers and countering attacks from fellow students… there was nothing left to explain.

"No m'am. That is all," John said. "May we take Chi…grakov to the medic?"

Dom mentally congratulated John at his quick thinking – not to mention quick-remembering of Chicago's real name. Come to think of it, John wasn't actually 'John' at all… So much for using other names as a means of keeping things professional between the lot of them.

"As you may have deduced, Chase, the camp has moved on," Madam Ko told him, moving closer and assessing Chicago's injuries for herself. She deftly removed the dressing on his forehead and prodded with gentle firmness at the wound. "But I will allow you to seek treatment for your injured. Chigrakov! This student needs your attention."

With that, she stalked off into a forest and before she had even gone twenty metres, she raised her stick high into the air and brought it swishing down into a nearby bush.

There was a strangled yelp before:

"Pathetic attempt, Mitchells. I expect to see you for extra camouflage tutorials. And I_ don't_ expect to see you after them," Madam Ko said, with an exaggerated exhalation as she disappeared into the trees.

As she left, a man who looked like an older version of the boy on the stretcher stepped out of the camouflaged tent and onto the snow. At the sight before him he sighed, placing his medical bag beside his son.

"Alright Wilhelm, what have they got you into this time?" he said with a sigh.

"It wasn't our fault Dr. Chigrakov, he fell on a sl…"

"Don't want to hear it, Jake," the medic said, rolling his eyes and checking vitals before setting to work. "He'll live."

"Who got to the post first?" Banana asked miserably.

"Well, nobody I don't think, as of yet," Dr. Chigrakov told them, cleaning the open wound on his son's forehead with his own particular gel mixture. Nobody quite knew what was in it, but it killed most known pathogens, encouraged healing and stung like a bitch to boot.

"Argh! Gettoff," Chigrakov Junior groaned, swatting at the hands.

"Enough of that, son," his father reprimanded gently. "It's only a scratch."

"That you can see a liddle, tiny bit of your skull through," Brian added helpfully.

"Dad? What…? How…? Wait a minute – _skull?_"

"Wait a minute – nobody's got to the post yet, you mean," Dom said, scrambling to his feet.

"Rules are first individual there, this time," the doctor said matter-of-factly. "Not the whole team. Ko said it was more realistic, given that you wouldn't want to take a casualty into a possibly hostile situation…"

But he was speaking to no-one. At the words _'not the whole team'_ all but Jake, who stayed to guard the casualty, had leapt to their feet and begun sprinting towards the ex-campsite.

As they rounded the corner and the thirty-foot tall wooden pole came into view, they could see others waiting to break cover from the bushes surrounding the clearing, but not wanting to risk getting shot at. Without wasting time sitting around to contemplate tactics, they kept right on running. John's team's rapid entry seemed to take anyone sat waiting to shoot by surprise. One of the students broke cover, sprinting for the wooden post and beginning to climb it quickly, as best he could with icy boots and cold hands.

"I'll climb!" Dom shouted from the front.

"We've got your back!" John told him, sliding to his knees and quickly tagging one of the shooters who had started to take aim. Panther joined him, taking great delight in 'pinking' three of the shooters who had tagged him earlier.

The other boy was already halfway up the pole and Dom kicked off from the floor, making the most of his height advantage and ridiculously long arms, covering nearly half the pole before he had even begun to climb. But the other lad had had a head start and was almost at the top by now.

If he pulled the cord and let the winning flare off first, it was over. With a lunge, Dom caught hold of his ankles and dragged himself over the lad, getting tagged with an orange paintball as he did so.

Brian tracked the line of fine and returned the fire.

The boy on the pole stretched up desperately, unlatching his hands to grab at the cord that would mark his team the winners. His hand flailed mere centimetres from the rope…

But unfortunately for the other team, perhaps the only two people in the camp that could have held onto the pole with a determined Butler dragging them down were currently busily protecting his efforts.

They slid downwards against the splinters, Dom locking his hands across the other boy's arms and torso and kicking backwards off the pole into thin air…

They fell the fifteen or so feet to the ground and landed heavily.

Banana and Jean sprang into action. Jean was actually perhaps the best climber in the whole camp, due to her light weight and stubborn nature, but Banana gave her a head-start all the same, bracing his back against the pole and holding out his hands for her to step up on. All of this occurred without any prior communication and within seconds Jean had scampered up the pole with the agility of a monkey and grabbed hold of the cord.

With a victory whoop she pulled down hard and a bright blue flare shot up into the sky, bursting into life. With the top now vacated, she scrambled up and balanced precariously on one leg, completely immune now to any pot-shots taken at her by any vengeful academy-mates.

The chorus of groans echoing from groups that would now not receive whatever reward Ko had planned for them was drowned out by the whooping and cheering of the one group which had.

At the edge of the clearing Jake heard them and almost hugged the medic working on his best friend.

"What's the reward this week, Dr. Chigrakov?"

"Well the others are getting a map of the route to the new camp."

"And us?" Jake asked hopefully. Sometimes Ko's idea of a reward would be something like the addition of more food for the trip to the new camp.

"Oh, just a helicopter ride over there instead," Chigrakov shrugged.

"You're kidding me?"

"No, luckily for Wil here at least," the doctor chuckled.

Jake could have kissed him.

* * *

Soon the entire Academy were arranged in the clearing. Those who had been tagged with pink were duly noted, although no-one else had suffered genuine injuries, except maybe to their pride. Just before the other groups were set off, a dull whirring became audible and the victorious group were called a variety of things they had definitely been called before.

"But Madam, Butler cheated!" one complained. "Colbert had already begun climbing when he grabbed hold of him…"

"And who pulled the cord?" Madam Ko asked with an amused twitch of her lips. "Was that also Colbert?"

"Well no…"

"And was Butler tagged before he made his efforts?"

"No m'am, but…"

"Please understand, McCoy. It is not who touches the pole first, but who pulls the flare. Had you been in a real situation, whether or not your teammate was taken down by enemy fire or physically pulled away from safety would make no difference."

"Understood, m'am," McCoy muttered sullenly.

"Now I suggest you concentrate on the task at hand rather than trying to talk your way out of a failure and criticising your superiors' tactics."

Dom held back a snigger. That comment was unlikely to go down well, despite it being technically true. They had won and so that did indeed make them superior to the others… for now.

As the helicopter landed, any retort was drowned out. And besides, Madam Ko had already made it clear that complaints were trivial and her interest was elsewhere.

"Load up your teammate, students," she instructed. "Be quick about it. Helicopter fuel is expensive. And try not to behead anyone as you do so, I have neither the time nor the patience for paperwork."

And with that she climbed into the co-pilot's chair.

Four minutes later they were in the air. Perhaps only one of them would truly rather have been _walking_ to his destination and Jean held onto his hand as the vehicle leaned over to the side, giving them all a view of the mountain and forest they had traversed what seemed like weeks ago.

"Is that supposed to be happening?" Banana asked innocently from his seat nearest the cockpit.

"_Cosa?_ Is _what_ supposed to be happening?" Rolando said quickly, eyes still clamped shut.

"Chill out…" John chuckled. "He's just trying to put the wind up you."

The helicopter lurched with turbulence.

"Oh _cazzo_. That is not normal I swear. I swear to God…" Rolando all-but whimpered.

"Alright, calm down Ro," Jean said, trying not to smirk as she patted the back of the Italian's hand gently. "Deep breaths, nice and slowly."

"I think I'm going to throw-up…" Panther muttered, grabbing hold of the nearest strap hanging from the ceiling and closing his eyes.

"What – now I have two of you?" Jean rolled her eyes in exasperation and took hold of Panther's giant fist in one hand, not letting go of Rolando's with the other.

"Aeroplanes are fine, they're all enclosed. This sodding this has a door that could just _fall open_ or some shit…"

"_Zitto, stronzo_ – you're making it worse!"

"Wusses, the lot of you," Jean tutted.

"Hey, not all of us," Brian objected. "Some of us are _much_ more manly."

"Yeah, I'm sure," Jean drawled sarcastically. "Between Jake crying over Chicago and Cookie reading _'Gone With the Wind'_ I'm probably the most butch of the group. Come on - admit it."

"Isn't that a romance novel?" Jake asked, trying to take the heat off his earlier slip in masculinity.

"It's classed in the _historical_ genre, actually," Dom muttered. "And besides my mam sent it to me, what was I supposed to tell her? I didn't even read it before we used it for kindling?"

The others went slightly silent at that. Mothers were not something to be made fun of. Not even by Banana.

"Nice try, Guetzli," Jean grinned at him. "But using the word _'genre'_ is sissy enough as it is."

"It has a pony in it called Mr. Butler, doesn't it?" Banana said with a snort, shooting himself in the foot slightly. "Man I wish I'd remembered that before I called you Cookie. You could have been Pony-boy…"

"So we have a pair of romance readers in our midst, have we?" John said knowledgably for no-one would take the piss out of him for reading, assuming him to be well-read all-round.

"Oh shut up it's historical," Banana grumbled, for once unintentionally on Dom's side. "You know what my folks are like with their attempts to make me all cultured and whatever…"

To avoid being dragged into a conversation that could further dissect his reading habits, Dom stared out of the window. To his surprise he saw something other than plain, iced landscape as they flew over the snow-covered valley.

Far below there were three figures gathered around a bloodied mess in the snow. Dom reckoned it was a deer, but it would be interesting to count how many students made it back to the new camp. The other three were striped black and orange. One large and two small. A tigress and her cubs. His tigress, perhaps.

Very glad he hadn't just said that out-loud, Dom gestured to the others and even Rolando plucked up the courage to squint out of the window at the sight.

"Aww I do love a happy ending," Banana said, wiping away an imaginary tear.

"Chicago got his head bashed in by a tree, I don't think he's too happy," Jake pointed out.

"What? He's alive, isn't he? Jeesh. Shouldn't be so ungrateful – that could be him down there if it wasn't for us being all sentimental and carrying his lazy arse outta there."

They laughed, or at least until the helicopter gave a shudder and Jean had to return to comforting the two aviatophobics.

Others might have found it strange that a group of teenagers could navigate the Siberian wilderness, face tigers, carry an injured teammate and fight for a place in a helicopter, only to spend the time comforting and teasing eachother in equal measure.

But not for them. For them it was just another day at Madam Ko's Academy.

* * *

**There we go - another one done!**

**No animals were harmed in the writing of this fic ;)**

**If you feel like letting us know, w****e'd love to hear what you think of the gang and our fic-set. Just so we know whether people want to hear about them or whether we should keep them to ourselves.**

**Well, thanks again and until the next time,**

**Wolfy and Steinbock  
ooo  
O**


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